712 Digital Group - top

Court upholds unreasonable search protections in pot case

News

January 6th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld a longstanding right to privacy by throwing out the marijuana possession conviction of a woman whose purse was searched during a drug raid at a house she was visiting.

Danielle Brown was smoking methamphetamine with several other people at a Des Moines home in October 2015 when a SWAT team burst in with a search warrant. Brown was not named on the warrant but police searched her purse and found pot. She appealed her conviction saying the purse search violated her constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure.

A majority of four justices on Friday agreed saying since she was only a visitor in the house and wasn’t named in the warrant she had an expectation of privacy. Three members of the court disagreed saying Brown wasn’t an innocent bystander and police had ample authority to search her purse.